Lucknow, India - At least one climber died and more than 100 people, including several from Russia, Australia and Germany, were stranded in northern India's Himalayas after a heavy snowfall, an official said on Saturday.

Authorities lost contact with the climbers on Friday when their satellite phones apparently went down, said PC Dandriyal, a local official in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

"We have lost track of over 100 mountaineers, hikers, porters and guides from India and abroad who are stranded across Uttarakhand after heavy snowfall," said Dandriyal.

It has been snowing heavily in the mountains for the past 36 hours and weather forecasters expected more snow over the weekend.

The trekkers were part of four teams and included four Russian climbers, seven Germans, and one from Australia. The rest were Indians.

At least 60 cooks, porters and guides accompanied the climbers, said Dandriyal.

Officials did not release the name of the trekker who died or the circumstances of his death.

Nautla, Mexico - Hurricane Lorenzo crashed into Mexico's Gulf coast on Friday, knocking out power to 85 000 homes and dumping torrential rains on the already waterlogged coffee-growing state of Veracruz.

In the coastal fishing town of Nautla, Lorenzo ripped off bits of roofs, blew down trees and scattered debris in the streets.

The mild 2006 Atlantic hurricane season draws to a close Thursday without a single hurricane striking the United States — a stark contrast to the record-breaking 2005 season that killed more than 1,500 people and left thousands homeless along the Gulf Coast.

Nine named storms and five hurricanes formed this season, and just two of the hurricanes were considered major.

Florida Emergency Management director Craig Fugate called the break welcome, but people along the coast shouldn't be fooled into thinking they won't get hit next year

"Past performance is no indicator of the future," Fugate said. "We're still in a decade period, or decades, of increased activity."

That is considered a near-normal season — and well short of the rough season government scientists had forecast.

Continued here

Thursday, October 26, 2006 - By Andrea Thompson

A new global satellite survey of thunderstorm activity has helped meteorologists pinpoint exactly where Earth’s hotspots for intense thunderstorms are: the American Midwest, Argentina, and some semi-arid regions like the edges of the Sahara desert.

The new study, which appeared in the August issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, is "really the first quantitative look [at thunderstorms] around the world," said lead author Edward Zipser of the University of Utah.

Spotted here

Fri, Aug. 25, 2006

Max Mayfield, whose calm voice but resolute manner guided South Floridians and millions of others through some of the worst hurricane seasons in history, will retire as director of the National Hurricane Center and intends to leave in January, he told his staff this afternoon.


»www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/15361934.htm

The National Weather Service in Norman Oklahoma is in the process of moving to its new location in the National Weather Center at the University of Oklahoma.

»www.weather.gov/norman

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A $1.5 million federal grant is going to enable Kentucky to develop a network of weather stations to improve forecasting.

HOBOKEN, N.J. Two New Jersey scientists believe they may have found a way to tame hurricanes.


»wcbstv.com/topstories/local_stor···929.html

Firefighters are battling to contain raging wildfires in California on
the 11th day of a heat wave that has been blamed for at least 56 deaths
amid temperatures of 45 C.
FULL STORY:
»www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/···eat.html

A 200-metre-long levee in southern China has collapsed due to heavy
rains from tropical storm Kaemi, raising the threat of floods for
20,000 villagers in Fujian province.
FULL STORY:
»www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/···ina.html

July 26, 2006
BEIJING, Wednesday, July 26 — Typhoon Kaemi came ashore on the southern China coast Tuesday afternoon, prompting the evacuation of more than 643,000 people in a region still recovering from an earlier storm that caused major flooding and left more than 600 people dead.

State news media reported that the typhoon struck the coast at 3:50 p.m.

CLEVELAND (AP) — The newest update to a Lake Erie management plan predicts global warming will lead to a steep drop in water levels over the next 64 years, a change that could cause the lake's surface area to shrink by up to 15%.

The drop could undo years of shoreline abuse by allowing water to resume the natural coastal circulation that has become blocked by structures, experts said.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., July 20 (UPI) -- U.S. scientists say methane escaping from the ocean floor may be affecting global warming cycles and climate changes more than previously believed.

University of California-Santa Barbara scientists say they developed the hypothesis while observing a massive blowout of methane from the ocean floor.

Atmospheric methane is at least 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide and is the most abundant organic compound in the atmosphere.

Story Continues

TOKYO - Japan is planning ultra long-range 30-year weather forecasts that will predict typhoons, storms, blizzards, droughts and other inclement weather, an official said Tuesday.

The project, to start next year, will harness the powers of one of the world's fastest supercomputers and is an offshoot of ongoing research by the country's science ministry to map global warming trends for the next 300 years.

Using the Earth Simulator supercomputer, housed in a hangar-sized building in Yokohama, just south of Tokyo, Japan's science ministry hopes to calculate long-term patterns in the interaction of atmospheric pressure, air temperatures, ocean currents and sea temperatures, said Tomonori Otake, an official with the ministry's earth environment bureau.

»news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060719/ap_···orecasts

At least 178 people in China are dead in the wake of tropical storm
Bilis while another 138 people are reported missing.
FULL STORY:
»www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/···orm.html

High winds and thunderstorms left 55,000 people in Northern Ontario
without power on Monday night.
FULL STORY:
»www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national···rio.html

SACRAMENTO (AP) — Californians could soon invest in trees to offset the greenhouse gases they pump into the air when they heat their homes or drive to work.

The non-profit California Climate Action Registry was set up by the state six years ago to encourage corporations and government agencies to track, and ultimately reduce, their emissions.

BAIKONUR, Kazakhstan (AFP) - The most complex Earth observation satellite ever to be placed into orbit is to be launched next week as part of a 15-year European program to improve the accuracy of weather forecasting and our understanding of climate change.


The first of three huge polar-orbiting MetOp (Meteorological Operational) satellites is to be fired into space on Monday from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

BEIJING - Tropical storm Bilis killed at least 42 people and injured hundreds as it churned across China's southeast, the government's main news agency reported Sunday.

At least nine people were missing after Bilis swept through the densely populated coast early Friday and moved inland, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing disaster officials.

ISPRA, Italy (AFP) - The internal combustion engine contributes massively to global warming, kills around 1.2 million people a year in road accidents and, scientists now warn, is costing billions of dollars in crop damage each year.

The villain is a molecule of oxygen called ozone.